The names of notes come to us from Latin (as well as the word nota, “sign,” “mark”). More precisely, they come from medieval Italy. Each note corresponds to the first letters of each line of the hymn to John the Baptist, “Ut queant laxis:
- Ut queant laxis – Do let our voices
- Resonare fibris – resonate most purely,
- Mira gestorum — miracles telling,
- Famuli tuorum — far greater than many;
- Solve polluti — so let our tongues be
- Labii reatum — lavish in your praises,
- Sancte Iohannes — Saint John the Baptist.
Each line begins with a corresponding note – the first in Do, the second in Re, etc.
But it turned out that Ut is not very suitable for singing, because it cannot be pulled for a long time. So it was replaced by the Do note, which has no such problem (doooooooooo).
Well, the last note Si is not formed by the first letters, as for example Fa – from the word Famuli, but by the first letters of Sance Iohannes. This is due to the fact that it was not added immediately. For a while there were only six notes. But in the Middle Ages, music, like all art, worked for the church. And the number 7 has symbolism as a sign of spiritual fullness and harmony:
- The “7 bowls” of God’s wrath are poured out by angels on the earth at the moment of punishing men (Rev. 16:1)
- The “seven stars” refer to the angels of the seven churches (Rev. 20:1)
- For seven days God created the world
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For the same reason there are only 7 primary colors and the same number of Color Wonders.
How many different colors there can be
In fact, the division of both notes and colors into seven is a convention. Both notes and colors may well be many more. Colors are electromagnetic waves of different frequencies. For example, red light is an electromagnetic wave that oscillates up and down at a rate of 405 to 480 million times (that is 480 and another 12 zeros). That is, if you want, you can isolate 75 million different shades of red and call them all different colors. But, of course, the human eye can distinguish far fewer colors. Just in the neighborhood of 1 million – some can see more, some less. That’s how many colors can actually be distinguished.
How many different notes there can be
It’s the same with sheet music. If there were 12 notes instead of seven, it would be much easier for people to understand how music works. Because musical works have their own mathematical logic, but it is expressed in a confusing seminote language. In fact, there are 12 notes – there is a “half note” between the two notes, which is essentially no different from the “real” notes.
But even 12 notes is not the limit. There are 19, 24, 31, 41, and 53-note divisions. And all these divisions have a number of advantages and disadvantages. But nowadays, it is the 12 notes that are used, because the sound of works in this case is the clearest. Although not perfect. For example, 41-note and 53-note works are even cleaner, but such a number of different notes is inconvenient from a practical point of view.
Sound, just like light, is an up and down oscillating wave. That is, it fades in and out evenly, a few thousand times per second. Man is able to distinguish from 16 such vibrations per second (16 Hertz), to 20 thousand vibrations per second (20 kiloHertz). A person is able to distinguish two sounds that differ from each other by 16 vibrations per second. That is 16, 32, 48 Hertz, etc. 16 and 17 hertz are perceived by man equally. So all in all a person is capable of hearing 20,000/16 = 1,250 sounds of different pitch. So this number is the maximum number of notes that can be created.
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